‘Sure I’m a friend of hers. I’m a friend of half the café cookies in New York. But I’m not their chaperone.’
‘Not even when they owe you money?’
The door opened and the red-head came in. Without bothering to glance at the two men, she went to the crimson wing chair and picked up the evening gown. Under it were a brassiere, a pair of panties and stockings. She gathered them all up and started back towards the door.
Victor called: ‘Hi, kid, don’t you want your slippers? They’re under the bed.’
The girl came to the bed. She knelt down by Mark’s feet, the red hair falling across her eyes. She fumbled and brought out a pair of silver slippers. Looping all the clothes into a clumsy bundle, she got up, reached across Mark, tugged the cigarette out of Victor’s mouth and stuck it between her lips. She crossed back to the door, went through it and closed it behind her.
‘Damn little tramp,’ said Victor affectionately. He shot out a hand and made a beckoning gesture with two fingers. Mark gave him another cigarette and lit it for him. Victor yawned again. ‘What’s this about Ellie owing me money? Who told you that ?’
‘Her mother.’
‘Come to think of it, she does. Got a little high one night at the club and dropped quite a bit at roulette.’ He looked at Mark with mock parental severity. ‘You ought to control that wife of yours better. Put her next to a roulette table and she loses all sense of proportion. But you weren’t around, were you? That’s right. She told me you were on a trip. South America or something.’
The indolent charm was absolutely unruffled. If he had killed Corey, surely there would be some tension in him. Mark said: ‘How much does she owe you?’
Victor made a clucking sound. ‘Now, kid, how would you expect me to know a detail like that? I’d have to look it up in the books.’
‘Have you been pressing her to pay?’
‘Me?’ Victor’s smoky eyes went wide and hurt. ‘What d’you think I am? A gangster in the movies or something? Ellie’s an old friend; she’s an old customer of the club. She’s rich; she’s got connections. A note from Ellie’s good as money in the bank. You’d as soon see me pressing my old mother to pay me back pocket money.’
He was either lying or not lying. There was no possible way of telling. But if he were telling the truth and there was no emergency, why had Ellie gone to her parents for money?
Mark said: ‘So Ellie gave you a note?’
‘Sure. It’s on file down at the club as all the other notes of all the other dizzy little rich girls. They’re wise to gambling, all of ‘em. They know a debt’s a debt and they all pay in the end.’ Victor’s hand crossed the crimson spread and settled on Mark’s. ‘Look, kid, I can see you’re the worrying type. Now don’t you bother that pretty little head of yours. There’s not any trouble coming to Effie from me. I understand Ellie; Ellie understands me. When she can pay she’ll pay. When she can’t pay, there ain’t going to be no masked bandits waving gats and hollering: “Pay up, Cookie, or this is it.” That’s not the way I operate. Get me?’
‘Okay. That’s what you say.’
Victor’s hand doubled into a fist and punched Mark’s shoulder chummily. ‘Relax, toots. Forget about it. If you came around here thinking your wife was in a jam, just throw it out of your mind. Okay? That what you want to hear?’
‘I want to know where she is.’
Victor’s white teeth showed in a smile. ‘At least you know she’s not in the East River wearing a nice warm pair of cement Arctics.’ He sat up and, pushing his hand down the back of his pajamas, started to scratch. ‘Aw, shucks. Can’t reach.’ He rolled over on his stomach. ‘Be a pal. Scratch my back, baby. I’m allergic to that red-head. She gives me hives.’
Mark started scratching.
‘No, a little lower, more to the left. That’s it.’ Victor wriggled voluptuously and purred his contentment. ‘Keep going, kid.’
Scratching steadily, Mark said: ‘Then you can’t help me about where Ellie is?’
‘N-no, kid. Don’t think I can. She was in the club about a week ago. Yakked a lot. Know how she is. Talk your ear off if you give her a chance. Now, come to think of it! Hey, don’t quit. A little higher. To the right. That’s my boy. Yeah, she yakked on about you being in South America on a big deal. She’s crazy about you. Know that? Couldn’t talk enough about you. Said it was too bad you weren’t going to be back for Christmas. Said …’
He broke off and swung around, almost catching Mark’s hand under his torso.
‘Hey, wait a minute. She did say something. She went on about being alone for hristmas. What a bore, she said. Then she said maybe she’d go off some place.’
‘Where?’
Victor furrowed his brow. He pushed out his lower lip like a little boy on a picturesque postal card from Italy
‘Palm Beach, was it? Or Sun Valley?’ He made an apologetic grimace. ‘Sorry, kid. It’s no good me saying something. I’m just not going to be sure.’ Victor smiled at him blandly. ‘Looks like you’re in for a solo Christmas. If you get lonesome, come around the club. I’ll show you a good time till she gets back.’
Mark got up from the bed. There was no point in staying longer. If Victor did know anything, he was certainly not going to tell. And it would be wildly rash to bring up the subject of Corey. Mark looked down at the other man who was admiringly studying his own flat stomach.
‘Thank Victor.’
‘Think nothing of it, kid.’
‘Know anyone else who might give me a lead?’
Victor frowned again. ‘Let me see. Ellie switches friends like diapers. Who’s she been palling around with lately? Seems to me there’s a feller. Sort of a stuffed shirt. Looks like he smells a bad smell most every place except the Harvard Club.’ He grinned. ‘Corey Lathrop. That’s the name. Know the guy?’
‘Yes. I know him.’
Victor rolled over on his side and yawned, indicating that the interview was over.
‘He’s your best bet. He probably knows. Ask Corey Lathrop.’
If Victor had killed Corey, this was the brashest line in history. Mark started for the door. Victor called after him: ‘Hey, be a pal. Leave me those cigarettes.’
Mark tossed the pack. Victor reached out an arm and caught it neatly.
‘Thanks, honey. Merry Christmas. And, look, when you locate Ellie drop me a post card. I’d like to send the kid a little Christmas present.’
Mark left the room. As he walked down the corridor towards the head of the stairs he heard a soft ‘psst’.
The red-head had opened a door to the left. She was beckoning, the sleeve of her housecoat falling back from her round, white arm.
‘Hey, you, Liddon.’
He turned towards the door. She pulled him in and closed it behind them. The butt of the cigarette she had snitched from Victor still drooped from her lips. She looked straight at him with absolutely no expression in the flat green eyes.
You didn’t tell Victor where Ellie is, did you?’
‘I don’t know where she is. That’s what I came to find out. Do you know?’
‘Me? I don’t know from nothing. But find her. Find her and find her fast — before Victor does.’
‘Why?’
‘Don’t you know why? Don’t you know she dropped twenty-five grand last week and took a powder?’
Twenty-five thousand! He had never dreamed it could be that much.
The red-head flicked the butt across the room into the fireplace. ‘I’m no Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm,’ she said. ‘Ellie Ross could be peddling her wares on Lexington Avenue and I wouldn’t lend her a penicillin pill. But I don’t like sudden death. I’m funny that way.’
She put her hand on his arm. ‘You look like a nice guy, Liddon. Why should you be a widower? Find that girl and make it snappy.’
‘And if I raised the cash?’ He knew he couldn’t — not half of it. But he had to know.
The red-head shrugged. ‘Now you’re being silly. It isn’t the dough, it’s the principle. She ran out on him. She gets the twenty-five grand work-out. Matter of ethics.’
Suddenly something Ellie had said to him the first night they met came back. It had seemed frivolous then. Now it had terrifyingly changed its mood. ‘Victor doesn’t want me to lose. Because — if I lost I wouldn’t pay and he’d have to kill me. He has to kill people who don’t pay up. It’s the only way he can keep in business.’
Because Mark was an essentially straightforward person, Victor’s duplicity appalled him. He’d shot Corey, of course. Now there was no doubt about that. And there was no doubt either that his hoodlums would be combing New York for Ellie. And yet he could lie languidly in his preposterous bed, grinning, being affectionate, bumming cigarettes from the husband of the girl he had condemned to death.
He asked urgently: ‘He doesn’t know where she is? You’re sure of that?’
‘I told you I don’t know from nothing. Relations between Victor and me are conducted strictly by gestures. But I don’t think he does.’ The red-head pushed him towards the door.
‘Now get out of here and don’t blab about this little interview. I’m a neurotic gal. I like having two arms and two legs and none of them broken.’
At the door he turned to look at her, wondering what the hell her life must be like. ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘Thanks a lot.’
She grinned. ‘Think nothing of it, Liddon. Just remember me next time you unroll your prayer mat.’
The butler was waiting in the hall with his hat and coat. He helped him on with the coat and let him out into the gently falling snow.
‘Merry Christmas, Mr Liddon,’ he said and closed the door.
MARK started towards Fifth Avenue. The falling snow made a Radio City stage show out of Central Park. He was tormented by a feeling of responsibility. It was his fault that this dreadful thing had hit Ellie. He saw that now. When she married him she’d been drifting, frightened, with nothing to cling to. He’d been warmth, security, safety to her. And, instead of sticking by her, he’d blundered off trying to make money because his pig-headed pride couldn’t take the fact that she was richer than he. Other offers would have come along later. Why hadn’t he waited? Why hadn’t he followed his heart rather than his head? He’d been crazy to go away and leave her alone.
Now that he knew she hadn’t killed Corey he could go to the police. But the danger was much too urgent for the lumbering machinery of the law to help. Apart from anything else, it would be days before they’d trust him once he’d confessed to hiding Corey’s body. No, this was something he had to handle himself. He had to find Ellie.
With a sudden inspiration, he thought of Arlene. He hadn’t seen her or had her in his mind since his marriage. But Ellie still went to Maurice’s at least once a week to have her hair done. It was just possible that Arlene might know something.
In the great excitement of his marriage to Ellie he had never stopped to think whether his complete neglect of Arlene might have hurt her. He didn’t think of it now. Arlene was just someone who might have some information about his wife.
*
The reception room of Maurice’s was a foamy pink and white. A great bowl of daffodils stood in front of a plate-glass window. A couple of women lounged, cross-legged, in deep chairs, smoking and reading fashion magazines. The blonde receptionist glanced up from trimming her nails and beamed.
‘Why, stranger, look who’s here.’
‘Hey, Gloria. Arlene around?’
‘She’s doing a finger wave. She should be through any minute. Take a seat. I’ll go see.’
She clicked away on high heels through the glass door which led to the beauty rooms. The two women glanced up from their magazines, assessing Mark with the shameless appraisal of the smart and rich. They did not interest him. He sank into a chair and reached for the nearest magazine. It was
Harper’s Bazaar
. He flicked through the pages idly. A portrait of the Duchess of Windsor showed something with which she had wowed Cap d’Antibes. He turned the page and was confronted with a photograph of his wife.
Its unexpectedness gave him a jolt. There was Ellie gazing out at him. She was half turned from the camera, in a long black evening gown, ruffled at the hips and slashed down the back. She was looking over her shoulders with her eyes glamorously half closed. It wasn’t really like her. It was too posed and languorous. It had none of her reckless little-girl quality. But it was Ellie.
The caption beneath the picture said that Mrs Mark Liddon, the former and celebrated Miss Eleanor Ross, was modelling a new evening gown of tiered black marquisette which Valentina had made for her. Mark read the paragraph through twice. Mrs Mark Liddon. It gave him a warm feeling of possession. Wherever she was, whatever had happened, she was still his. Mrs Mark Liddon. He peered at the photograph proudly, searching for the little mole under her left shoulder. It didn’t show.
The receptionist came tapping back.
‘Arlene’ll be right out in a minute, Mark.’
She turned her brightness on the two women and led them away through the glass doors. Mark sat by the daffodils looking at Mrs Mark Liddon, the former and celebrated Miss Eleanor Ross.
The fluffy room was empty now. The falling snow outside hushed everything. Mark heard the glass doors open, heard footsteps.
A voice said: ‘Mark.’
He got up and turned. Arlene was standing a few feet from his chair. She had cut her red hair short and wore it in little curls on top of her head like Ellie’s. It didn’t become her. She’d been putting on weight too. She was a good-looking girl, but weight had always been her trouble — even as a kid.
‘Hi, Arlene.’
She wasn’t smiling. She was looking straight at him. Her mouth was unsteady.
‘Why didn’t you ever come and see me?’
He said literally: ‘I’ve been out of town.’
‘I know that. I mean, why did you never come and see me after the marriage?’
He could feel the emotional tension in her, but he didn’t want to cope with it. Not now. He said: ‘I just never got around to it, baby. I’ve been busy and …’
He shrugged an end to the sentence. Suddenly there were tears in her eyes, one glistening drop at the edge of each eye. ‘Swine,’ she said.
In a dry, academic way he felt sorry for her. He even felt faintly guilty.
But — not now.
He said: ‘Have you seen Ellie?’